Beatific Vision
by stefanie bean
Summary: Libby is dead, and Hugo joins Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Michael as they journey to the other side of the Island to get Walt back. Hurley-centric, with Bea Klugh and assorted Others. Some supernatural elements. COMPLETE
1. Tears at Midnight

**Chapter One: Tears at Midnight**

The trouble started the evening they buried Libby and Ana Lucia. Michael wanted people to go across the Island with him, to "get Walt back," but Hugo ignored him. He was in no mood for stupid, pointless adventures.

He couldn't shake Libby's last word, how she had whispered it out in two final, fatal syllables, hoarse and blood-splattered. "Michael."

Not Hurley, not Hugo, but Michael.

What did that mean? Libby's face had twisted with horror as she died, desperately gasping for air which never came. Her wide-open eyes were fixed with such intensity over Hugo's shoulder that at one point he turned around to see what was there. An unbidden, unwelcome thought came to him. This what what his Grandma Titi called "a bad death," one that you had to pray many rosaries to avoid.

Hugo had clung to Libby's hand for a long time, until Kate gently unhooked Libby's dead fingers from his warm, living ones. "Hurley," Kate said in a voice so tender it started him crying all over again, "We have to wrap her up before she gets stiff."

Sad and reluctant, he let go, although at first he wouldn't allow anyone but Kate or himself to touch Libby. Together they wrapped her in a coarse wool Army blanket. When it came time to move her body onto a stretcher, Hugo grudgingly allowed Sawyer to help.

Not Jack, though. Wasn't there something Jack could have done? He was supposed to be this great surgeon, but maybe he sucked at surgery as much as he sucked at bedside manner. All he did was give Libby heroin. For that matter, Jack hadn't saved the marshal, either. He and Sawyer just finished him off. Then Boone died in a pool of blood and agony. And even though Michael was fine despite his gunshot wound, he stood there like a statue, watching everyone in the Swan Hatch with round haunted eyes.

Useless. Useless as Jack. Useless as Hugo himself.

Now Hugo stood tongue-tied at Libby's grave, sick to his stomach with anxiety. Shame, too, because thirty-some pairs of eyes stared at him, waiting for eloquence, for closure, for something more than a few stammered sentences which proved to everyone else that Hugo knew virtually nothing about her.

Nothing except that he had almost thrown himself off a cliff, and then he hadn't.

"She helped me," Hugo finally said. Incomplete, inadequate, but that was all he had. Then it was too late. It would always be too late, no matter what he said or remembered or did, because one clod hit the olive-colored shroud, then another, until her body was covered with pale brown dirt.

The funeral over, people headed back to their own fires, their own lives. Claire stood hand-in-hand with Charlie (here we go again, how long would it last this time?), while Sawyer and Kate softly talked out of earshot. Every so often Kate looked over at Hugo with an expression of pity.

Michael once again pestered him to go across the Island. The guy was obsessed, Hugo thought, and Hugo knew obsession.

Hugo was ready to blow off Michael one more time, when a sudden, mad thirst for revenge swept over him. If he had a gun in his hand, and if their escaped prisoner Henry Gale stood there before him, Hugo would have killed him in an instant. No shit, Sherlock. He had never thought of himself as someone who could take down a man in cold blood, but on this night he wasn't so sure. Maybe it was as sweet as some people said. People did it often enough, didn't they?

Still shaking with desire as cold as ice, painful as brain-freeze, Hugo turned to Michael at the grave-side and said in a tight emotionless voice, "I'm going with you." Never had he wanted anything so much as to stand face to face with Libby's killer.

Then lost sailor Desmond showed up in his sailboat, but after the shock wore off, it became clear that Desmond wasn't taking anybody out for the three-hour tour anytime soon. Chattering clusters of people plied Desmond with questions, which he was mostly too drunk to answer. A few people offered to share their supper with him, but he refused. Hugo left Desmond sitting on the beach alone, draining his bottle.

Libby's tent was right at the tree-line, and that was where Hugo headed. The rickety structure was already starting to lean from the wind. If you didn't tie those shelters up every day, they'd fall into a heap before you knew it. Even though Libby was never going to use this lean-to again, Hugo tied it up snugly anyway.

Under the tall, thin trees, Hugo felt eyes watching him as he worked. Eight or so of the group which Sawyer called the "Girl Scout Camp" sat around their fire. They lived in the farthest recess of the beach camp, right up against the jungle's edge, and nobody paid much attention to them.

Normally they greeted Hugo and welcomed him to their fire, but tonight was different. They had never fallen silent when he came over into their neighborhood before. They reserved that treatment for Charlie, or Locke, or Mr. Eko.

It must have been something in his face which kept them still and speechless, the only motion the ceaseless work of their hands. Some wove; some carved; some chopped with those long black obsidian knives which the men in their group made.

But then Sirrah and her friend Chen left the Girl Scout camp fire and approached Hugo, sweet Sirrah with her long cascade of black hair, Chen from Taiwan flush with his new mastery of English. Sirrah carried a coconut shell full of fish stew and offered it to Hugo. He waved them away, though, because the thought of food made him even sicker than he already felt. Sirrah gave a graceful little nod as she and Chen retreated.

Hugo crawled inside Libby's shelter and lowered the tarp to hide himself from the Girl Scouts' sympathetic looks. Even before the tarp hit the sandy ground, his cheeks once again were wet with tears. Libby hadn't slept on a pallet or anything, just one blanket laid directly on the ground, and another to cover her. So he clutched the top blanket, pulling it tight to his body as if it had been Libby herself.

He cried softly, not worrying about the Girl Scouts hearing him, because everybody on the beach lived by the same rule. If the tent flap was closed, if the tarp was down, no matter what kinds of interesting noises came from within, you didn't hear it. What happened inside the tent stayed in the tent.

Hugo put his face into Libby's blanket and inhaled what was left of her fresh scent, piney from the trees above and a little salty. Then it hit him that she'd gone all the way to the Swan Hatch to get blankets. Why? Why walk an hour round-trip when there were two perfectly good ones here?

For what it was worth, she actually had gone to get blankets after all. The Hatch blankets, shredded by bullet holes, had lain by Libby's side in a pool of her blood. At least she hadn't ditched him entirely, which was the first thing that had occurred to him last night when she didn't return. It wouldn't have been the first time that happened. But to go to the Hatch, that didn't make sense. Not that she had ever returned to explain anything. Not alive, anyway.

Hugo stared at the blue tarp ceiling, tears leaking unchecked now, the thin fabric tethering him to earth, to keep him from spinning away on a trajectory of grief. There was so much he'd never know, starting with why she even liked him in the first place, gross, fat, stupid as he was. Where he knew her from, and not just the Sydney terminal or the plane.

But it was over, and now he'd never know. Had she been real at all? Had he hallucinated her, just like that creature which had flung itself off the cliff, which had hit the water and crashed into the surf, but had never left a body or any sign of its presence?

Hugo touched his mouth where she had kissed him not twice, as he'd asked, but just once.

Then, as Hugo remembered that single, dry, close-mouthed kiss, something inside him broke like a dam. He had enough deaths on his conscience. Enough people had died because of him. No more, never again. It wouldn't bring her back, anyway. The desire to kill someone seeped out of him with his tears.

On the other side of the tarp wall, through most of that night, those clustered around the Girl Scout fire listened to his suppressed and stifled sobs, drawn in and out like the final rasps of a dying person, and said nothing about it.

In the first light of dawn, the Girl Scouts watched him with solemn, silent faces as he crept out of Libby's tent for the last time. Clad in a cocoon of grief too thick for speech or touch to penetrate, he headed back to his own shelter, and packed for what he had come to think of as his final journey across the Island. He didn't care, though. Might as well get eaten by bears, or torn by boars, as well as stay here.

As Hugo walked past the food tent without taking anything, he gave Frogurt a look blank and hard as a concrete wall, one which made the smaller man turn and walk away without even delivering a condolence. Kate handed Hugo a water bottle and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, but he brushed her off and moved on, not seeing the pain which crossed her face.

Jack was standing by the water tarp, fitting a pistol into the back of his pants. _One of these days __somebody's gonna__ blow their ass off_, Hugo thought. But all he said to Jack was, "If we're gonna do this thing, let's do it."

(_continued_)


	2. The Shattering Sky

**Chapter Two: The Shattering Sky**

Jack and Michael, Sawyer and Kate walked all through that day and into the night, with Hugo lagging behind. He ate nothing, barely drank, spoke hardly at all. He also suspected he was beginning to hallucinate. For one thing, there was that big bird which swooped over their group and called out his name. Of course nobody heard but him. Typical.

Now the birds were talking to Hugo, too. Not that anyone else heard that, either. Once in awhile flocks of rainbow-colored parrots passed by, showering broken bits of phrases such as, "Don't worry," or "Chin up." Songbirds like blue jewels perched at head-height and said, "Watch out," when he almost collided with a thick branch.

It could have been worse. Sometimes voices yelled at you, or told you how stupid and worthless you were. That had never happened to Hugo, though. Even when Hugo and his imaginary friend Dave had capered around Santa Rosa, Dave had always been open and friendly. Even if everything he had said was a bold-faced lie. Some of the guys at Santa Rosa, though, they heard bad stuff, and they suffered for it.

So while twittered encouragement from bright little songbirds wasn't that bad, it still didn't make Hugo feel any better. Because he was still hallucinating.

Then, in a moment so horrible that even the birds fell silent, Michael admitted to Hugo what he had done. For a few seconds Hugo didn't care what happened to any of them. _Let the __Others__ kill __us__ all_, he thought. Better that than for yesterday's cold manic rage to return. Better than Hugo squeezing out Michael's last dying breath through a broken airway.

"That's it," Hugo said. "I'm going back."

He couldn't, Jack argued. The Others already knew they were coming. There was nothing to do but go on.

So, with a soul shot full of novocaine, Hugo followed the group as Michael led them into a narrow valley ringed on both sides with soaring emerald cliffs.

Up ahead, in a clearing surrounded by the soft green trees the castaways called "feather trees," sat a mound of black-and-white speckled composition books. Not just lying on the ground, either. Instead, the notebooks were stuffed into what looked like plastic bank tubes, the kind you use when you go to the drive-up window.

While Jack, Sawyer, and Michael bickered over how far Michael had led them from the sea-coast, Hugo and Kate inspected the notebooks. Hugo didn't care how close or far they were to the coastline, because he couldn't have found it on his own anyway.

The men's voices rose in argument, Jack's hard and insistent, Sawyer's loud and blustering. At one point Sawyer reached for his gun. Kate grabbed his hand to stop him, while Hugo turned away. Just because he had lost the desire to throttle Michael didn't mean he was going to stop Sawyer from blowing Michael's head off. He just didn't want to watch.

Over at the tree line, the birds were really shrieking now. Their wild caws and screeches sounded like, _It's a trap, a trap_, but Hugo ignored them. Instead, he took one of the notebooks out of its tube and began to read. When he got to the line, "#37642 picked up a men's magazine and went back into his bunk, again," with the last word underlined and circled, he gave a little joyless laugh. Kate shot him a look of annoyance, probably payback for his earlier coldness. He set the notebook down.

Then Hugo's brief, dry amusement gave way to terror. The argument between the other four reached a fever pitch. Jack called Michael a traitor; Sawyer bellowed that Sayid had already known this, and how could Jack have been such an ass that he couldn't admit it. Kate snapped at both of them to put it back into their pants; this wasn't a pissing contest and what were they going to do about it now? Michael stammered excuses and then fell silent.

It wasn't their shouting which terrified Hugo, though. That he barely heard, because a tidal wave of sound suddenly washed over him from overhead, drowning out everything else. The white overcast sky split down the middle like a torn sheet, and out of that great black rip poured forth a flood of deafening, barely-understood whispers. Then, the black hole itself broke into thousands of fluttering things shaped like crows, but which flew about like bats. And, oh God, each one of them had a tiny, scrunched-up human face.

Hugo tore his glance away from the shattering sky to the people around him. They moved in slow motion, a video played at half-speed and entirely predictable. Whatever was happening with the sky, no one else seemed to see it. Jack and Sawyer still screamed and waved their arms about. Kate flung herself between the two men before they came to blows.

Then Hugo felt rather than saw the burlap-clad men and women who lurked in the dense underbrush at the outskirts of the clearing. At that moment Jack yelled, "Run!" but it was too late. The Others poured out of their hiding places with rifles and worse. The attack had begun.

Hugo didn't hear the darts whiz through the air, didn't hear Kate's shouts as she fell convulsing to the short dry grass. The brown-clad people ran like sleek beautiful animals loping across a savannah, with grace their natural gait. The attackers darted about on the periphery of Hugo's vision, but what drove him to his knees was not the Others, but the black fluttering shapes which gathered and swung across the sky in a thick, undulating flock. At first Hugo couldn't believe that everyone else still ran about and fought. Couldn't they see that dense cloud which filled half the sky and covered the sun? Couldn't they hear their gibbering, frantic shrieks?

Apparently they couldn't. Then terror shook Hugo even harder. The black fluttering things cried out, filling his ears with an irresistible chorus. He pressed his hands over his ears as hard as he could and shouted without control, trying to drown out the voices, although no cries from his own deep chest could cover the sound of that throng.

The Others chased first after Sawyer, then Kate, while above the whole plain of battle the airy black things fluttered. Hugo knew with delusional certainty that they fed off the Other's cold anger and his own and his friends' terror. The bat-shapes clustered around almost everyone, it seemed, but not above him. Nor did they swarm around the lean, brown-skinned woman in a dark grey head scarf, who stood unmoving and calm at the edge of the fray.

So while the flapping black things left Hugo alone, the whispers came louder still, and now they formed into clear words which pierced him with mocking torment.

_Elizabeth_, the whispers said. _Elizabeth_.

The harder he pressed his hands against his ears, the louder and more distinct the voices became.

"No," Hugo moaned. No, this isn't happening." He crouched further down into his grassy shelter, trying to bury his head in his arms as deeply as he could. He screwed his eyes tight, but that only made it worse, because all the uncanny figures came into focus sharper than before. The trees themselves glowed lime-green, pulsing in time to the crooning chant.

A flock of birds took off from the largest of the glowing trees, and from behind his screwed-shut lids, Hugo saw that they had faces, too. Theirs, though, were of beautiful women with skin green as grass. Their eyes glittered, and their black hair streamed behind them as they flew about in the midday sun. The women-faced birds swung around and dove into the bat-things, chasing them off into the tree-tops.

Hugo knew that if he opened his eyes to look across the valley he would see all this and more, and that he would not be able to bear it, because that would prove that he hadn't just popped one gear, he'd stripped them all. Better to hide behind closed lids, and tell himself that this was nothing but brain chemicals. Just brain chemicals.

But he knew it wasn't.

Hugo collapsed into the grass with a small whimper. The screaming had stopped, but he still heard faint whispers and fragments of human conversation. The Others conferred with each other, until a low-pitched woman's voice rang above everyone else's.

Everything around him fell silent. Hugo thought, _I'm good as dead__. __Th__ey killed __everybody__, and I'm next_.

He stiffened, waiting for the gunshot, the blow to the head. _Please, I'm sorry. For all of it, whatever it was. For hurting Ma. For yelling at Dad. __Everything__. Just don't let it hurt too much._

When a hand touched his shoulder, Hugo gave a great shudder. But instead of an ax-blow, he felt a touch like the gentle shake a big sister gives her small brother in the throes of a restless and troubled nap. Hugo didn't move or open his eyes, so the light prodding came again, more insistent.

"Hugo," the low voice said, and this time he looked into the dark sculpted face of the kerchiefed woman who had stood so calm and still at the edge of the crowd. She gazed down on him with an expression unwavering and kind. "Hugo, get up."

(_continued_)


	3. March to the Sea

**Chapter 3: March to the Sea**

The dark, lean woman with the stern face helped Hugo to his feet. _Man, she__'__s strong_, he thought as he gripped her arm. For a second he thought of bolting, but she was almost as tall as he was, with long sprinter's legs. Anyway, he sucked at running. Besides, strong men had hoisted Jack, Kate, and Sawyer limp as flour sacks onto their shoulders. The men stood at attention, bending a bit under their burdens, waiting for the tiniest signal from the stern woman. Michael stood useless and marooned at the edge of the throng, away from everyone. Once he glanced over at Hugo but then turned away quickly, unable to meet Hugo's eyes.

All of the weird things Hugo had seen had vanished from the valley. The voices stopped. The sky returned to its previous pearly grey-white. Birds still circled above, their beating emerald wings dark against a backdrop of pale streaky clouds, now bearing ordinary bird heads and beaks. Then the bird-flock veered off in one green mass over to the shadowy side of the mountain, taking the strong, uncanny sense with them, leaving the narrow valley washed-out and pale in the overcast light.

Hugo wavered a bit, about to swoon. "Here," the woman said, handing him an old, round canteen with a screw-on lid. "Drink this." Behind her, one of the men shifted his burden. Sawyer, it looked like, from the jeans and shirt, his unconscious features covered by a black burlap bag. The man of the Others said in an irritated tone, "Hey, Bea, are we gettin' going or what? This guy weighs a ton."

Bea turned, and though Hugo couldn't see her face, the ice in her voice cooled even the jungle heat itself. "We'll get going when I say we get going." She then turned back to Hugo, motioning for him to drink.

The canteen felt about half-full, so Hugo took only a few sips. "Drink up," Bea said. "Much as you want. We got a long walk, and I don't want you passing out on me."

So he raised the canteen and drank deeply, took some breaths, and drank again. That should have emptied the canteen, but the water kept coming cold and sweet, sharp and clear, the best he'd ever had on the Island so far. She encouraged him with her eyes until he couldn't drink any more. Weird how those round canteens could fool you. They held more than you thought.

The group started to move. Bea led, keeping a firm hold on Hugo's arm all the while. When he fell behind, the Others parted around him, streaming to one side or the other like a school of fish dividing around a mid-stream rock. Bea steered him onto the easier pathways with the lightest touch. A few times he tried to talk to her, but she said nothing, just gave him a faint shake of the head, _No_.

The path grew steeper, the surrounding landscape more stony. High winds blew away the low clouds, so that the sun beat down upon them all in its hot skyward rise. When Hugo started to sway again, Bea made him drink more of the crisp-clear water, but it didn't help. The green spots danced before his eyes and he began to stumble, so she gripped his upper arm with a pinch so hard that her fingers sank into the soft flesh.

"Ow!" Hugo said. That was going to turn black and blue, for sure. Some of the Others looked back, and a few of them snickered.

"Keep going," Bea said in a low voice that was almost a growl. "If you stop, I can't protect you."

"Man, I'm about to collapse."

"No, you're not," she said more gently. Then she called out in a voice loud enough for the rest of the Others to hear, "If you don't pick it up, Hugo, we're gonna taze you, and you won't like it. Then four of my boys are gonna have to carry you over the rocks, and they probably won't be gentle." But the expression in her eyes said, _Come on, you can do it. Just do it_.

So Hugo struggled up the last leg of that rocky hillside, sweating under a blazing afternoon sun which had burned away the earlier overcast. It felt so much hotter up here, with no bushes or trees. Then as they climbed up over the final crest, he almost forgot his exhaustion. Right before them loomed a great pile of rock whose two huge upright stones were topped by a flat one laid across them both, forming an archway through which even a man ten feet tall could pass. Through its opening shone the wide blue sea.

"Dude, it's like Stonehenge," Hugo said under his breath. Bea turned around when she heard him, but said nothing.

The men carrying Kate, Jack, and Sawyer skirted around the stone portal as if they wanted to avoid it, then carefully edged down a steep, pebble-strewn path which led to the rocky shore. Up ahead, splayed across her captor's shoulders, Kate started to stir and moan.

"Hurry up," Bea said to the men. "We've still got to get over to the dock and get them into position."

The men picked up the pace, almost skidding on the gravely path. "We go too fast, we're goin' down on our asses," one Other grumbled as he staggered under Jack's weight. The man next to him, a burly muscular fellow almost as wide as Hugo, carried nothing except his rifle. He gave a rude laugh.

"I got an idea," the muscular man said. "Send Mikey down first. If he hits the skids, we know not to go that way."

That provoked another round of coarse laughter. A few of the men shoved Michael into the lead. "Yeah, Mikey," someone else called out. "The faster you go, the sooner you get your boy," and the man stretched out the last word into one long mocking syllable.

Bea and Hugo brought up the rear, which gave Hugo a little time to look over the small village of yurts spread out beneath the rocky hill, all in the shadow of the stone portal. A pair of Others with rifles stood posed at tense attention in front of a rusted metal door embedded in the hillside. As Hugo passed, he thought he saw the Dharma Initiative logo on the battered, sun-faded door, but he couldn't be sure.

The men with rifles guarding the door shifted nervously, as if they expected something to happen at any minute. Suddenly, a few loud metallic clanks rang out from behind the door. One of the guards jumped as if he'd heard a ghost, and brought his rifle up at once, taking aim at the door itself. But it didn't open, and Bea pushed Hugo along from behind, hurrying him along.

At the base of the hill, about twenty or so Others busily worked around the yurt camp. Most of them were women who wore the same hardened, shaggy look as the men, as well as the same shabby brown and olive clothes. A few of the older men repaired fish nets very similar to Jin's. One younger woman strung fish on a line to dry, piercing each one through the eyes with a thick needle, like stringing beads for a necklace. A few Others came out of the yurts to stare at Bea's group. Then slowly, one by one, most of them laid down their knives or nets or needles and joined the throng without even being told.

The Others reserved their hardest and most piercing stares for Hugo. He passed his hands self-consciously over his body, but soon it became clear that wasn't it. They barely looked at Jack or Sawyer or Kate, and Michael they seemed to deliberately avoid, skirting around him as if they didn't even want to share the same path. Their unkempt hair blew in their faces, and from beneath it their eyes shone out sharp and bright. Hugo stared back at one woman with eyes so blue they seemed to be made of the sea itself. An older man dark as Bea, gnarled and hard as driftwood, looked Hugo up and down as if seeing right through him. Then Hugo knew that whatever Michael had said about these people being "stupid hillbillies who ate dried fish," it was lies, all lies.

The Others weren't set apart by their rifles, or their obviously factory-made yurts, nor even their sharp, intelligent glances. What made them different was that they seemed to be made of the same stuff as the earth itself, as tough and strong as the stones beneath their bare feet, the stones over which they moved without apparent effort or pain. Jack had told everyone what Tom Friendly had said, "This is our Island, and we just let you live on it." Now, seeing the Others in the bright sunlight, watching them move as if they were extensions of the earth and sea themselves, it wasn't hard to believe.

What could any of them back at their own beach-camp stronghold do against these people? Suddenly Hugo felt very tired, and the yurt village was already behind them. "So, this isn't where we're going?"

"I thought I told you not to talk, Hugo," she said, but raised her head and with her eyes signaled, _Look out there. Look ahead_.

"Oh, great," Hugo muttered. The group headed towards a narrow sea-coast path strung along the high cliff-side. To their right loomed the high red-brown ridge, and to their left the coastline fell off sharply to a rocky sea-shore with no beach at all. Loose, crumbly rocks covered the path itself, so that even the nimble Others slipped more than once under the unconscious weight of their captives. The higher they climbed, the narrower the path became. Bea had let go of Hugo's arm by now, because there was no room for them to walk side-by-side. Instead, she placed her hands firmly on either side of his waist to guide and stabilize him.

"Keep your eyes on the back of the man in front of you," she said to Hugo. "Don't look up or down."

The crash of the sea against the jagged shoreline below sounded very loud, and the rocks below looked razor-sharp. Then, mercifully, the path widened, and before Hugo knew it, they walked once more on sand, not loose pebbles. They crossed a small beach inlet surrounded by trees, and never before had ground felt so good beneath Hugo's feet.

Up ahead, built out over the still inlet waters of a quiet bay, stretched a long wooden pier.

Bea gestured to Hugo, _Go on_. It was like walking the plank in a pirate movie. The Others stopped at the far end of the dock, near a faded sign which read "Pala Ferry." Without ceremony, Bea's men dumped their half-conscious burdens. Jack and Sawyer were beginning to move around now, and Kate moaned again.

"I'm sorry," Bea said quietly to Hugo as she turned him around with a gesture that looked rougher than it felt. "I have to do this. Don't fight me."

Hugo nodded, _OK_. Bea tied his hands behind his back, and then gently brushed the hair from his face before tying a gag across his mouth and around the back of his head.

Bea signaled the big man with the rifle to begin. One by one, the Others pulled the bags off their prisoners' heads. In no time at all they were bound as they lay on the dock. Sawyer pulled himself into a half-sitting position, still weak and mostly helpless. He looked around with wild glances until he spied Kate, who lay unmoving with open eyes.

Then the men of the Others yanked the three of them to their unsteady feet, shoved guns into their backs, and marched them down the long pier. Bea released Hugo to one of the men, who forced him in line with the other three prisoners, and he felt a stab of fear as he passed out of Bea's hands. It only grew worse when the four of them were forced down to their knees with guns held to the backs of their heads, execution-style. Hugo's own fear was reflected in everyone else's eyes, in the tears streaming from Kate's, in the hate blazing in Sawyer's. Jack just looked down at the dock, so Hugo couldn't see his expression at all.

With his hands forced up high behind his back, pushed to his knees, Hugo couldn't catch his breath. His heart slammed against his ribs like a bass drum. It would be just his luck to die of a heart attack right then and there, before the Others ever got around to shooting him. He barely noticed the small boat which pulled up to the quay, hardly reacted when their former prisoner Henry Gale got out and walked towards them. Henry stared at Hugo for a few seconds, as if he was surprised to see him there, and gave Bea a questioning glance. She turned away and ignored him.

Then the sky erupted.

(_continued_)


	4. Breaking of the Fellowship

**Chapter Four: Breaking of the Fellowship**

Hugo had known a couple of guys at the Santa Rosa Institute whose senses were scrambled like eggs. One man said he could see sounds, so that musical notes danced about like flashes of brilliant color. Another man said that one particular orderly's touch tasted bitter, like vomit. Now the same thing happened to Hugo when the greyish clouds resting over the water of the bay faded to bright white. It looked white, but it really wasn't, because the whistling colorless sky tasted like purple. And the high-pitched hum which hurt his ears sounded like purple, too. In fact, for weeks afterward, whenever Hugo looked at something even faintly violet, be it the small flowers which bloomed on the succulent shore plants, or one of Rose's brightly-patterned shirts, he remembered what purple sounded like, and felt the rich, grape-like taste of purple along his skin.

So while it wasn't exactly fun to have plum-colored daggers of sound and light flood your eyes and pierce your eardrums, Hugo found a small reassurance in the fact that everyone else saw and heard it too. Then almost at once the strange sky changed back to normal. The pain in his ears vanished without even the tiniest hint of ringing. Strangest of all, the Others massed on the Pala Ferry dock acted as if nothing had even happened. But Bea's glance never left Hugo, not even when Michael got traded for everyone else, not even when Walt stared out at the four bound people on their knees, his face cold and blank as if he had never seen them before in his life.

One of the Others dragged Hugo roughly to his feet, but Bea's cool hand rested on Hugo's arm. "Step back," she hissed to the Other who had manhandled him. As the man retreated, Hugo could have sworn he saw a look of fear cross the man's face. Steadying Hugo with her hand, Bea told him he was to go back, to tell everyone else at the beach that they were to never come here, that Jack and Sawyer and Kate belonged to the Others now. He was to leave at once. Bea gave a swift glare to a different Other, and the man scurried to retrieve Hugo's pack.

"You're leaving us, Bea?" asked the man Hugo knew as Henry.

While Hugo struggled with the backpack straps, Bea stuffed her canteen into his pack and secured the fastenings. She said to Henry, "I did what you asked. Now it's on your head."

"You did more than I asked. I thought I requested Shephard, Austen, and Ford." From his petulant tone, he wasn't entirely happy about it.

Bea said nothing, just gave the small, owl-eyed man a defiant stare.

"You and Mikhail, following instructions was never your strong suit, was it?"

"This settles it between us, Benjamin. You're on your own now," Bea said, and Hugo wondered why she called Henry that.

"Don't worry, Sister Klugh." Henry, or Benjamin, spit out her name with a mouthful of spite. "The pleasure of your absence will be all mine."

Bea turned to Hugo, as if surprised to see him still there. "Time to go, Hugo. Now, and fast."

Hugo stared over at the sea-side cliff path from where they had come. It looked even steeper and narrower than before. "Ms. Klugh, let me go with my friends. Please."

"That's not possible," she said, for the first time looking worried. Down on the dock, Henry stared at them impatiently, clearly wanting both of them gone. He conferred in hushed tones with one of the large men holding a rifle, who then cocked it and pointed it in Bea and Hugo's direction.

Bea hissed, "I told you, Hugo, move. You can't be here." She put her hand on her head, as if it would help her think faster. "OK, let's try this. Can you climb?"

"Uh..."

"You're going to have to. That way," and she pointed to a faint trail which passed through thick vegetation. The path ran from the pier up the landward side of the hill, an alternative to the narrow sea-side path.

"What's that?"

"A short-cut. I think you can make it. Up is always easier than down."

Hugo shook his head. Some kind of goofy Other slogan, no doubt. Good for pep talks, maybe, even though he didn't feel very pepped up right now. Actually, the jungle climb wasn't too bad. They clambered over roots thick as rungs on a very steady ladder, and in a short time found themselves at the top of the ridge. Hugo could see the yurt village down below, to the southeast. He and Bea stood about at the same level as the great rock formation with the hole in it, the afternoon sun shining through it like a magnifying glass.

Hugo turned to Bea and said, "What now?"

"Go back that way till you get to the jungle, right where we came out. Then do what I told you. Go back to your camp. In the jungle you'll have help, I promise. But if Benjamin catches us here, neither of us will be safe."

Hugo meant to turn and do as she asked, but for just one second he had to look back down at dock, where the captives and the Others still gathered.

"Hugo," Bea said again, warning in her voice.

"Please, they're my friends."

She just shook her head and said half to herself, "They better have brought my horse, that's all I can say." And then, almost like a prayer, she added, "Jacob, why must I suffer this fool?" Hugo winced, so she said to him in a gentle voice, "Not you."

"Henry. Uh, Benjamin," he said.

"Yes. He's a complete fool." Then she yanked Hugo down, hard, hiding both of them behind a cluster of boulders which crested the hilltop. Hugo peeked over the rock ridge at the dock where Jack, Sawyer, and Kate still knelt. A woman Other came up to Kate, and it was hard to see what she did. But Kate slumped to the wooden dock and lay there. Then Jack fell, followed by Sawyer.

"What did they do?" Hugo asked, anger and fear rising now. "What did they do to them?"

Bea gave him a firm look, which reminded him of his mom when she went on one of her tears, then followed it up with a hard grab to his arm. "Stay down and be quiet," she hissed, her voice low. "Hugo, listen to me. They're all right, just knocked out. For the trip."

"The trip where?"

"To where they're headed, where you can't go. Where you are never to go."

"How am I supposed to not go there, if I don't even know where it is?"

She didn't answer, just rested her face in her hands, looking sad and full of despair. Something out on the bay caught Hugo's eye. The small boat in which Michael and Walt had left was supposed to head out to sea on a bearing of 325, whatever that was. Now, strangely enough, it was turning around and heading back to the dock.

When Bea saw the returning boat, she yanked hard on Hugo's arm, pulling them both to their feet. In genuine panic she said, "OK, now, you run. That way," and she pointed to the thinly-trod path across the hilltop which led back into the jungle. "Run!" she said in a harsh, urgent voice, and smacked him as hard as she could across the back like a horse that needed the spur. Then she took off herself to the left, at a sharp angle from where Hugo was supposed to go, dashing on her way with long sprinter's strides.

Hugo ran too, flesh shaking, legs cramping almost at once, heart pounding in his chest. His pack bounced about and slapped his back almost as hard as Bea had. After a few moments he slowed to a jog, then a fast walk, breathing in huge ragged gasps. When he came right up to the edge of the woods he bent over with his hands on his knees, almost sick from exhaustion.

It was late afternoon, but the jungle looked way darker than it should have, even at that time of day. Hugo knew he couldn't go back to the yurt village, though. There was no way out but through. And Bea (Sister Beatrice? What was that about?) had said he would have help. Into a sea of green so dark it was almost black Hugo plunged.

(_continued_)


	5. In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle

**Chapter 5: In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle**

The jungle didn't look the same to Hugo as when he had been forced through it in the opposite direction. Not that that made any difference, as he couldn't track his way out of a paper bag. Kate had told him that more than once, and even her light, laughing tone couldn't quite erase the sting. What in the hell was he supposed to do now? He took another long drink from Bea's canteen, and the water went down like living ice. The sun was behind him, it was late afternoon, and that meant he was going east. Probably.

A large greenish bird cawed at Hugo as it gazed down at him from a spreading, thick-limbed tree branch. That bird again, the one which had called out his name, but hadn't crapped out any gold. Not yet anyway. At least it didn't have a woman's face. In its claws it clutched something small and furry, and with its beak it pulled long red strings from inside the little dead creature, slurping them up like spaghetti.

While the bird's meal looked pretty unappetizing from where he stood, Hugo looked inside his pack anyway, even though it was probably a waste of time. The little food they'd started out with the day before was long gone, and Hugo hadn't had any of it. Now that Hugo wasn't being chased or in immediate fear of his life, his stomach rumbled. Thinking back, he hadn't had anything to eat for almost three days, not since that morning right before Kate and Sawyer had come out of the jungle and told him Libby had been shot.

But his pack felt heavier, bulkier than on the trip up. Hugo took another long draw from Bea's canteen and rummaged in the backpack. Hello, what was this? A shirt that wasn't his, green and brown tie-dye, very seventies, and from the musty smell hadn't been worn in a long time. Big enough, though. How often did that happen?

Then there was some kind of squashy parcel wrapped in beige paper. He peeled a corner back to find three plump fish, freshly gutted. Their pink, blunt bodies were so pale they might have been white. Some kind from the other side of the Island, maybe, as he'd never seen any like them before.

In another parcel, not so squashy, were three tough-skinned, dusty roots like potatoes, each the size of a softball. And funniest of all, there was an old-fashioned wooden matchbox with just three matches in it. Hugo hadn't seen this kind since he was a kid. Not that matches were amusing in and of themselves. They were damned useful, though, unless you wanted to eat sushi and sleep in the dark.

What made him smile was the tiny picture on the box cover: a huge-bellied shirtless guy with four arms and an elephant's head.

The eagle-like bird kept pulling off thin strips of red meat, and occasionally glanced down at Hugo with its piercing dark eye.

Maybe the bird couldn't understand him, but it didn't hurt to try, even if it was a totally crazy thing to do. "Hey, bird," Hugo called out. "I'm sorry Michael tried to shoot you." For if Jack had given Michael a loaded gun instead of one with no bullets in it, this beautiful creature would have been lying dead on the path.

The green bird dropped the remnants of its meal onto the jungle floor. Then it ruffled its feathers, rose in a graceful curve, and circled around a few times, only to land on another limb a few hundred feet deeper into the jungle. Once again it cawed, and man, did that caw ever sound like his name, no matter how much Sawyer had scoffed.

It was as obvious as if the bird had spoken to Hugo directly. He was to follow it.

So all through the remaining daylight hours Hugo tried to keep pace with his fluttering green guide. A few times he lost it, but the bird always managed to circle back, leading him further on. When the falling sun left the understory dark in shadow, he called out, "I gotta make camp." The bird squawked a few times as if it understood, then disappeared into the rapidly approaching dark.

Just his luck, there was dead-fall everywhere. Hugo piled the wood into a tipi shape, just like Kate had showed him. He forgot, though, to put a wad of tinder in the center, so the first match blew out before it caught on anything. Then he smacked his head, called himself an idiot, and looked around.

Hugo didn't often have to make fire. There were always at least two or three fires perpetually burning at the beach, and all you had to do was grab a stick, light it, and carry it to your own wood-pile. Kate or Sawyer had made the fires when they were out trekking.

Again, as luck would have it, right over there stood one of those trees with the dry hairy bark which Kate favored for fire-starting. So, just as Kate would have done, Hugo scraped off a huge handful of tinder and stuffed it into the bottom of his wood pyramid. He struck the second match but it fizzled almost at once.

Hugo stared at the third unlit match for a long time. In the deep twilight, the red ink lines of the fat elephant-figure almost seemed to dance. Eyes scrunched up hard, Hugo thought fiercely, _For the love of all that is good and holy_, _p__lease don't let me screw __this __up_. Taking a deep breath, he held the match very close to the base of the tinder pile and struck.

The burst of flame licked his fingers. He pulled his hand back with a cry, dropping both matchstick and box into the fire. A blossom of blue heat leapt up. For a few seconds the red-ink figure on the burning box cover really did dance with joyful abandon, flinging itself about with belly shaking, arms waving, its elephant trunk swinging wildly. Then the matchbox collapsed into curls of black ash, but the blue flame remained. All at once the rest of the wood ignited, flaring up into a column of bright oranges, blues, and yellows. A few minutes later, the flame collapsed into glowing red and black coals laced with an occasional flicker of flame, the perfect kind for roasting your dinner. The kind which normally took an hour to burn down.

"Dude," Hugo whispered. Kate was good, but she'd never built a fire like this.

Hugo had planned to save one of the fish for breakfast, but he ended up eating them all anyway. He finished off his meal with long draughts from Bea's canteen, no longer worrying about emptying it, because no matter how much he drank, the water kept coming. He built the fire up again with new dead-fall so that it burned merrily, sending up clouds of shiny sparks.

It was crazy: here he was in the middle of nowhere with no idea where to go, no streams anywhere in the dry highland forest, who knows what lurked out there in the dark, and yet he felt good. Worried about Kate, about Jack and Sawyer, yes. Sad for Libby almost beyond bearing. And he felt sorry for Michael, too, because Hugo had seen the naked fear in Michael's eyes when Henry, or Benjamin had led him to that small boat where Walt waited.

Something about that little boat nagged at Hugo. Of course. Michael could no more take that rusty tub out onto the open ocean than Hugo could run a marathon. So when Michael had turned around and headed back to the dock, that could mean only one thing. Michael wasn't leaving this Island any more than the rest of them. Maybe. Or maybe they had another way to get him off.

Was it actually lying, just to keep silence? At that point Hugo decided that if he had anything to do with it, no one else was going to die for Michael's sake. Hugo wasn't going to say a word about the boat turning around when he got back to the beach. If he got back. It was bad enough that Jack and the others had been taken. Maybe Michael and Walt had forgotten something and were coming back to get it, before heading out to sea for good. As far as Hugo was concerned, it wouldn't be a lie to say that Michael and Walt had left on a boat. Maybe they would send rescuers after all. It never hurt to have a little hope.

_Wherever you're going, Michael, you s__orry__ son of a bitch, I hope you find what you're looking for_.

Hugo was suddenly very tired. The fire had plenty of wood; he was full as a tick from the fish, and the dry forest night was cool and breezy, not sodden like the wetter regions below. He pushed the potato-like roots deep into the ashes underneath the glowing coals, where they'd bake overnight and hopefully serve as breakfast. Curling up before the fire, his head pillowed on his backpack, Hugo fell asleep almost at once into a heavy, exhausted sleep without dreams.

The next morning dawned pale and overcast, with thin greyish clouds streaked across the sky. The fire had gone out. Hugo uncovered the roots, roasted to perfection and still warm from their bed of thick ash. They were kind of like baked potatoes, but meatier and not as mealy, with golden brown flesh rich inside tough brown-baked skins.

Little birds chittered on a few branches overhead, but all they spoke was bird-language, not English. His guide of the evening before was nowhere to be seen.

Now here he sat in the middle of a strange part of the jungle, with no choice other than to navigate on his own. After covering the cold fire with dirt, Hugo headed east, where the newly-risen sun sat on the highest part of the tree line like a golf ball perched on its tee. After a few hours of heading east and slowly but steadily downhill, he heard water moving over stone. Kate had told him that if you get lost in the woods, just follow running water downstream, and sooner or later it would get to a beach. If there was a stream, he could fill his canteen if nothing else. Strangely, though, the canteen felt as it always had, about half-full.

The long cool drink revived Hugo a bit. He trudged alongside the stream bed, but after a few hours it trickled away to nothing amidst piles of moss-covered rocks. Down he went, always down, but eventually the dry stream-bed rocks thinned out until none were left. Thick ropy vines hung down in every direction, and he could only see a few feet ahead of himself. Even the noonday sun could barely make it through the thick canopy, although tiny sparkles fell down here and there. Hugo sat down on his haunches on a flat rock, and put his head in his hands.

He was lost.

(_continued)_


	6. The Watcher in the Woods

**Chapter 6: The Watcher in the Woods**

A small but distinct noise rose out of the jungle in the direction from which Hugo had just come. The hairs on his arms stood up, and he turned cold even in the afternoon jungle heat. The noise wasn't a growl, not exactly, more like a sigh. Definitely not a person's sigh, though. The noise came again, closer this time, accompanied by soft leaf rustles and the snapping of twigs. It would have been crazy not to run, but Hugo didn't. Instead, he parted the creeping vines like a curtain and there, in a bare patch between thick trees covered with a riot of those big twisting heart-leafed plants, he saw it.

A bear. A polar bear, in fact.

Hugo had heard the stories: how Sawyer on their second day on the Island had shot a polar bear which had attacked their small group of explorers, and how much he'd complained that no one would help him skin or dress it. He could of used a bear skin rug, Sawyer grumbled, but those lazy sons-of-bitches couldn't care less. Of course when Sawyer went back to get it later that day, the carcass was gone. Or how another bear had chased Walt, only to run away when Walt stabbed it. The bears hadn't been seen since, not around the beach especially, and so people stopped talking about them. But it always stayed in the back of your mind, that there were bears on this Island.

This bear wasn't growling or charging, though. And it wasn't all that big, either, not like the ones Sawyer and Walt had described. Unless they exaggerated, of course. Which wouldn't have surprised Hugo one bit. Walt had been just a kid, and Sawyer was, well, Sawyer.

If this bear had stood on its hind legs, it would have been a bit above Hugo's height. Its face and muzzle were long and graceful. The bear's eyes shone blue deep as a night sky, and the sunlight reflected in them glinted silver, sharp as stars.

The bear walked towards Hugo, giving him that long, slow look all the while, a look which froze him where he stood. Its thick white fur had a pale blueish tinge. The bear came quite close to him, and then gave him a powerful nudge right at hip height with its muzzle, almost like Vincent when he wanted your attention. It then passed him and walked on ahead.

If it was a hallucination, it was a damn good one.

That nudge didn't make the bear unreal, though. Another supposed hallucination had heaved a coconut at Hugo a week earlier, and while the bruise on his stomach had faded, the memory of the pain remained. Real or not, the bear's gesture was unmistakable: _Follow me_.

So Hugo did. The two of them pressed onward for hours, Hugo always at the bear's rear. The long thick fur on its business end made it impossible to tell its sex, but its graceful, almost serene movements and its smaller size made Hugo think it was female. Once in awhile the bear turned back to give Hugo one of those long piercing glances, and when he stopped to drink, it paused as well, its mouth narrowed into what almost looked like a smile.

Slowly Hugo began to recognize clumps of trees, or the way a particular cluster of tall ferns draped over a certain set of rocks. He was headed for the caves, where the jungle was so cool and shaded because even the late afternoon sun couldn't penetrate the thick canopy overhead. At any moment he expected to turn a corner and come upon the wide cave entrance framed by a small waterfall which endlessly filled its small pool, yet never overflowed.

The bear turned around and gave a growl, but Hugo kept pushing westward towards the caves anyway, drawn by what, he didn't know. It was as if a sweet voice spoke to him, not one he actually heard, but one which came deep from inside. Its tones were tender and sympathetic. You wanted to lay your head on that voice's shoulder and give up whatever you were struggling with, just let the voice take over and decide it all for you.

_Here you are at the caves_, the voice suggested. _Why go back to the beach at all? Everyone __you__ cared about back there __i__s gone, except for Claire, maybe, and she d__oes__n't need __you__. She ha__s__ Charlie to look after her, __now that the __two of them __a__re back together again._

Hugo shook his head, hard, as if he could toss off those soft, insinuating tones the way Vincent shook off water, but the voice went on. And there was Locke too, if Claire wanted. Sooner or later Charlie and Locke would probably start punching each other out over her. No point in hanging around to look at that, was there? If Hugo went back, he'd get dragged right into the middle of all of it.

And did Hugo really want to be the bearer of bad news, the one who had to tell everyone that the whole trip had been a stunning failure? Not only were Michael and Walt gone, but the most important people, the biggest contributors to beach life besides Locke and Sayid, they were gone too, and probably for good. Everyone would look at him with pity and contempt, it being obvious that even the Others hadn't wanted him. Everyone would blame him. Then more people would head out into the jungle to stage yet another failed rescue. They would die, and that would be on Hugo's head, too. Hadn't he done enough? Hadn't he hurt enough people?

_You __had the right idea __last week_ _when __you__ told Libby __you were__ going to run off to the caves and live alone, _the voice said. Then Hugo's eyes stung with tears, because the voice had spoken Libby's name in a way so ripe with tenderness, so full of love, that he almost couldn't bear it. The voice understood everything, it seemed. How forlorn Hugo had felt, how lonely. How nobody at the beach would understand, even if Hugo did tell everyone the truth, as Bea Klugh had instructed.

_And __who's__ Bea Klugh, anyway?_ the voice continued. _Just some crazy old woman, probably a liar like the rest of the Others. Never mind her, though. Who appreciates you at the beach camp?__ No one needs you down there. But up here, ah, up here, I need you_.

_Screw __the beach camp_, Hugo said to himself. He didn't even notice that the bear had disappeared from the path ahead of him. All he could think of now were the caves, the coolness of the water in their pool, their dark recesses, the sweet relief of not having to face confused faces and incessant questions. Not even the thought of the two dried-out bodies sleeping in their cleft bothered him now. He plunged into a vine-draped thicket all lit from behind by the western sun, pushing aside long creepers that gripped him like tentacles and stuck in his hair, almost as if they wanted to block his way. He swore a little, then shoved them aside even harder.

Then, almost right up into his face, directly in his path, stood the bear like a massive silver-white tank. It leaned its head down a bit and snarled, baring long white teeth which ended in points so sharp they were almost invisible. Its gums were blue-black as its eyes, which had lost their kind expression and were narrowed now in anger.

"Holy crap," Hugo said. He backed away slowly, then turned back the way he'd come, towards the east, away from the caves. He fought the urge to run until he could no longer hear the bear's breathing behind him.

Then Hugo bolted, running faster than he ever had in his life. At any second he expected to feel the bear's teeth in his back, expected to hit the ground with claws raking his back to shreds. A few moments later it became clear that nothing chased him. Except for the sweet, melodic calls of some songbirds either too far away or perched too high up to see, the jungle was silent.

He sunk to his knees, panting like a locomotive, heart feeling as if it would burst. He looked around carefully, but the bear was nowhere to be seen. With a resigned sigh he plodded further east, the late afternoon sun at his back now, his round broad shadow stretched out before him.

The terrain grew familiar once again, and Hugo recognized the area around the Swan Hatch's back door. He flushed hot with shame as he passed the spot of his first stash, a hole at the base of a tree trunk covered with a few palm fronds, where he had hidden Dharma food stolen from the Hatch's pantry. Then he forgot about his embarrassment, for where the Swan Hatch had once stood there was only a deep pit strewn about with debris.

"What the hell happened here?" Hugo said out loud. He plopped himself heavily on a fallen log. Above him the green-crossed sky shone full of slanted sunlight, as if a giant had tossed handfuls of gold coins onto the canopy one after another, until they rained down in a glittering shower onto the jungle below.

Out of the shadowed forest, silent as a huge cat, glided the bear. For a second Hugo thought of running again, but the bear's movements were slow and gentle. It came over to him and rested its heavy head across his thigh.

For a wild moment Hugo thought that not only the Swan Hatch but maybe the camp at the beach had been flattened as well, that he had trudged back all this way for nothing but heaps of broken sticks and fractured, tarp-covered bodies. What had he been thinking, wanting to go to the caves. That was nuts. If the beach was flattened, they were going to need help down there.

That soft, insinuating voice had already faded like a barely-remembered bad dream. Hugo laid his own great head down lightly on the bear's, and without thinking plunged his hands into the soft fur around its neck. It was as if that moment when the bear had snarled and almost charged had never happened. The bear's fur was cool even in the dappled sunlight of late afternoon, and he rested there for what felt like a long time.

But the anxious vision of the beach camp in ruins and the people crushed still stayed with him. "What's the use?" Hugo said, some of the old doubt back. In answer, the bear gave his face a little lick, just like Vincent would have. It was a gesture so warm, so friendly, that Hugo patted its head as he would have Vincent's. But down in the bear's blue-black eyes there swirled a wildness Vincent's eyes had never held. Then the bear licked Hugo several times along the soft round curve of his neckline, down to where the sweat gathered.

"You like the salt, huh?" he said.

In answer the bear rose and moved away from him, skirting delicately along the edge of the pit. Hugo struggled to his feet and started after it, but the bear turned and in an unmistakable gesture, shook its head, _Good-bye_. It didn't seem possible that something so white, so large as the bear could literally melt into the greenery and disappear to nothingness, but it did.

Time to head back to the beach and do what he needed to. Hugo heard a rustling in the bushes ahead of him, but didn't think anything of it. It was probably his bear-friend, circling back to check on him and make sure he headed in the right direction.

Man, it was hot now, the worst part of the day in the jungle, when there was no breeze and the western sun stalled in the sky like it was never going to set, when the thick humidity hung over the jungle like a living cloud.

The rustling continued. _It's just that bear again._ _Might as well have a drink._ He fumbled for Bea Klugh's canteen, paying no more attention to the approaching sounds. Just as he raised the canteen to his mouth, something split the air with a sharp whoosh. A swift-flying knife imbedded itself in the canteen, shivering as if it met some huge resistance. It should have gone right through the canvas and into Hugo's face, but instead, water just squirted everywhere.

"Dude," Hugo exclaimed, as John Locke and Charlie Pace noisily thrust their way through the bushes towards him.

oooooooooooooooo

There was something else weird about that day, too. Bea's canteen was never the same. It was as if the air had been let out of it or something, because it shrank up, dried and deflated, its olive and red stripes fading to a dull brown the color of dead leaves. On his way back to the beach camp, Hugo tossed it away like old fruit peelings.

Just another afternoon on Mystery Island.

(_the end_)


End file.
